President Ali Abdallah Saleh was joined at the opening ceremony by his visiting Ethiopian and Djiboutian counterparts.
Police were deployed on all the city’s main thoroughfares as well as around the stadium and team hotels ahead of the opening game between the hosts and neighbor Saudi Arabia.
Troops blocked hundreds of supporters of the Southern Movement, a coalition of autonomist and pro-independence groups, from entering the city from neighboring Daleh Province, a major center for protests in recent months, security sources said.
Southern Movement sources said that troops posted in the town of Anad, some 65 kilometers north of Aden, opened fire on demonstrators carrying flags of the formerly independent South.
They also carried pictures of the leaders of the seven countries competing against Yemen in the two-week tournament -- Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Southern Movement had called on its supporters to demonstrate during the event, which continues until December 5.
The authorities mobilized some 30,000 police to provide security for the visiting teams and fans, the tournament’s security chief General Saleh Zawara said.
It was the first time that the Arab world’s poorest country has staged the tournament since its launch in 1970.
The authorities had been at pains to reassure participating countries that the security forces were able to deal with the threat of disruption by the Southern Movement as well as a growing Al-Qaeda presence in the region.
Police were deployed on all the city’s main thoroughfares as well as around the stadium and team hotels ahead of the opening game between the hosts and neighbor Saudi Arabia.
Troops blocked hundreds of supporters of the Southern Movement, a coalition of autonomist and pro-independence groups, from entering the city from neighboring Daleh Province, a major center for protests in recent months, security sources said.
Southern Movement sources said that troops posted in the town of Anad, some 65 kilometers north of Aden, opened fire on demonstrators carrying flags of the formerly independent South.
They also carried pictures of the leaders of the seven countries competing against Yemen in the two-week tournament -- Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Southern Movement had called on its supporters to demonstrate during the event, which continues until December 5.
The authorities mobilized some 30,000 police to provide security for the visiting teams and fans, the tournament’s security chief General Saleh Zawara said.
It was the first time that the Arab world’s poorest country has staged the tournament since its launch in 1970.
The authorities had been at pains to reassure participating countries that the security forces were able to deal with the threat of disruption by the Southern Movement as well as a growing Al-Qaeda presence in the region.
